News 17 August 2023
There is so much happening in what I call the unpopular news, I just have to talk about some of the things. One of the topics which has hit this news lately are the finds all over the world proving the human race not only is older than thought, but they got to places on the globe far earlier then previously stated. I have to wonder if someday we will be able to trace humans back to the time of the dinosaurs, after all there are some foot prints of dinosaurs and humans side by side that are claimed to have been made in the same time period which are not recognized by most scientists.
Sometimes it pays to be persistent and believe me, some scientists kept trying to solve a mystery for over 70 years. I imagine different generations of scientists kept at the problem and it was just announced they solved most of it. The problem was the Kushan Empire of Central Asia left writings behind, but no one could decipher them. Well, that has come to an end. The writing was found in the 1950s and has been worked on ever since. There is still one problem however, that problem is only 60 percent of the characters have been figured out, so the deciphering of the writing is fragmented at best. It seems like this would be a good project for artificial intelligence.
A new type of thruster is being tested by NASA and built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. It is a solar electric thruster system. The idea is to install them on the Gateway space station when it is finished. The propulsion system is said to provide 12 kilowatts of power which would make it at least twice as powerful as any other electric propulsion system in use. It will become part of the Artemis program. The system will be known as the Advanced Electric Propulsion System or AEPS. It is being called next generation technology.
Its finally happening, a company in China has announced it is going to produce the world’s first humanoid robot. Will it actually be a robot spy? One of the most amazing things to me is the robot looks a lot like the robot in the movie I Robot, with Will Smith. The announced purpose of the robot is said to be to assist the elderly. The company building the robots is Fourier Intelligence. They are located in Shanghai. There seems to be some evidence the elderly like the idea of a robot helping them. Studies have been made which seem to prove this and it is said after a while they even think of it as a friend. The CEO of the company said he sees a future for the robot as an indispensable caregiver, therapy assistant and a companion.
There is an article which claims New Orleans, Louisiana has become the premier destination for those interested in the paranormal. I can’t say, but the article makes a pretty good case for the reasons it might be. It claims it has the title of the most haunted city in America. There are tours taking people to the supposed paranormal hot spots, but many other cities have these types of tours. What makes it a place to go to is its incredible night live. Another title it is said it has is the Murder Capital, because it has a very high percentage of murders for its population size. As to the fact there are vampires and such there, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Scientists have sent energy from space down to earth for the first time and it is carbon emissions free. The energy was composed of a microwave energy beam and was sent from a satellite in space. The power is captured from the sunlight but is different in space because the sun is always there. Solar cells on earth only work at full power in daylight and are subject to clouds and such.
I never did quite understand the space time. I understand the word space and also time, but putting them together has a baffling meaning to me. Even the definition I found does not clear it up. Scientists are saying they found evidence of background ripples in the fabric of space time. I hope you people have a better understanding of this than I do. There are a couple of different definitions for space time, so I will go to the one from Einstein. Einstein said all objects in the universe sit in a smooth, four dimensional fabric called space time and went on to say massive objects warp space time around them.
Cemeteries exist all over the country and why not, we have to put the dead who are not cremated somewhere. Some of these cemeteries are centuries old. Did you ever wonder where the oldest cemetery in the United States was located? The answer is the Charter Street Cemetery. It was established in 1637 and is in Salem, Massachusetts. It is also famous for housing the bodies of 19 women who were declared witches by Judge John Hathorne and executed.
Lately, there have been a few studies which try and figure out if humans can survive for long periods of time on deep space flights. There is one which supposedly simulates a Mars habitat where a year long test is being conducted. I can’t help but think the point is being missed here. No matter what type of test is being conducted on earth, there will never be that knowledge which we would feel knowing if something goes wrong in space or we don’t get along with some of our companions we can’t get back. I believe this is one of the biggest obstacles to space travel. Truthfully, I have to wonder if any of the astronauts or cosmonauts didn’t get along on the International Space Station and we just never heard about it.
One of the great mysteries of ancient Egypt has to do with a land they spoke about many times. The land was Punt. One of the problems for modern day archaeologists is the fact even though it was written about many times and the ancient Egyptians were usually very good at keeping records, they either never recorded its location, or we haven’t found those records yet, or they were destroyed. There is some weak speculation that Punt might have been Ethiopia.
A discovery which was made on Venus talks about life forms which might be able to exist in the clouds of that planet. It seems the pressure and atmosphere at the surface of the planet make finding life there improbable. Yet, as I have said many times before just because it would be hostile to humans no planet should be ruled out when looking for extraterrestrial life. Before we found life in the harsh conditions at the bottom of deep parts of the ocean, we didn’t think anything could exist there.